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The Hall County public school football programs have played 50 games in the last eight weeks. Their offenses have scored 1,725 points, and allowed 1,055 points. The power rating for these seven schools combined is 1.64, which means they're winning 1.64 games for every one game that they lose.

In the throes of the 2013 college football season, the SEC East is suddenly wide open and the West is taking shape. Upsets, stellar performances, and big-boy football games are happening at a rapid pace.

Unbelievably, we're just about halfway through the college football season. After six weekends of college football in the South, this much is certain: your Bloody Mary recipe should be perfected by now. But, if not, you've still got time to make the grade.

At the end of six weeks, six out of the seven Hall County public school football teams have winning records. They have combined to score 1,109 points, while allowing 667 points. That is almost a 2 to 1 ratio.

Friday was the first time in a long time that I haven't seen at least one Hall County game (if not two) on a Friday night. Betsy and I were in Columbus, Ohio, celebrating the 1973 undefeated Ohio State Buckeye team.

National and conference championship aspirations abound Saturday in Athens as No. 6 LSU and No. 9 Georgia, two founding members of the nation's finest football conference, meet for the 30th time. Toe-to-leather is set for 3:30 p.m. between the hedges of Sanford Stadium and CBS will televise the contest nationally.

Each week, I consult my handy SEC helmet schedule when deciding the topic for SEC Banter. The schedule shows every game for every SEC team using helmets. It's fantastic to view an entire SEC football season on a single sheet of paper, and I have to admit that the little helmets are kind of cute.

We've now seen three weeks of Hall County high school football. Last Friday night, we went to City Park Stadium to see Gainesville take on Buford. I knew going into the game that Buford was loaded with Division-I college prospects. And I also knew that win, lose or draw, this would be a good contest for Bruce Miller's tough-minded Red Elephants. This is the kind of game that prepares your players to make a run at the playoffs and another possible state championship.

Die-hard sports fans have circled Saturday, Sept. 14 on their calendars for months. Fall's most anticipated game awaits. You guessed it: Saturday marks just three more weeks until the NBA preseason tips off in Istanbul, Turkey, when the Oklahoma City Thunder plays the Turkish basketball club Fenerbahce Ulker at Ulker Sports Arena.